


The Road Not Taken

by WhyIHTS (Kidd_you_not)



Series: What's The Story? [2]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Anti-Sokovia Accords, He’s just not in the right here, M/M, No character bashing though, Not A Fix-It, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not Tony Stark Friendly, Past Relationship(s), Tony Stark Is Not Helping, Tony supports the Sokovia Accords, basically how Civil War would have gone if Stony were canon, past a bad Stony break-up, past toxic relationship, the Avengers discuss the accords
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kidd_you_not/pseuds/WhyIHTS
Summary: As if the public backlash and Ross' meddling after the video hits isn't enough, now the Avengers are once again divided.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: What's The Story? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558282
Comments: 19
Kudos: 35





	The Road Not Taken

When Bucky and Clint make it to the compound, Steve is already waiting impatiently, as expected. Well, the guy's had a headstart, after all. Together, they step into the yet empty conference room. Breakfast, more coffee and a shower have done little to improve Clint's energy levels, who has finally started to feel the consequences of a night spend awake. The supersoldiers don't seem to be sharing his predicament; the opposite, rather. Steve is pacing up and down while Bucky's tense and thrumming with nerves. At least, they've all changed clothes.

"Where are the others?" Bucky asks, looking around. It's almost 8, the time for when the meeting was set to happen. Normally, everyone's quite punctual.

Steve stills. "FRIDAY didn't pass on the initial message. I had to ask everyone individually. They should be here soon." Makes sense. Today is supposed to be one of the very few mandatory quiet days for the team. No training, no conferences, except for the occasional emergency they had to attend to, of course. Most of the team chose to spend it sleeping in and lounging on the various couches scattered throughout the compound. 

Clint frowns, though. "Why didn't FRIDAY pass it on?"

"I have been instructed to redirect outward contact," comes a voice from above.

Puzzled, he looks up. "Why? It's from Steve, he doesn't count as outward contact."

"I have been instructed to redirect any contact that comes from outside the compound." Clint can see Steve roll his eyes from across the room.

"I made the call when I was still driving here." Cap glares. "You should have made an exception, though."

"I have been instructed-"

"Yes, yes," Bucky interrupts with a handwave, "did that order come from Stark?"

"I have not been permitted to disclose that information." Bucky gives Steve a significant look. The other returns it.

"We will talk about that later," Steve decides, "when the others are here." The others, including Tony, Clint thinks. Of course Tony is gonna be here. He must have known about the meeting before any of the rest in the compound have. Clint gets why he'd restrict incoming calls and messages, considering the yet undecided public reaction to the video, but why would he not let Avenger's messages through?Thinking about it makes him nauseous, so he tries not to.

"Imma go get snacks for everyone and maybe bring the coffee machine in here." He claps his hands, but neither of them is looking at him, still locked in a weird staring match. He leaves the room and heads to the kitchen, where he finds company.

"Hey, man." Sam grins and waves his coffee mug in greeting. For a second, Clint revels in the normalcy before he calls a smile to his lips.

"Hey." He must sound odd, because Sam's eyes turn curious immediately. Trying to change the subject, he says, "Steve threw you out of bed, huh?" He lets his eyes wander over the obvious sleeping attire the other was proudly sprouting.

Sam barks a laugh, "Yeah, he was pretty insistent. You know what got into him?" Clint gives a short nod, uncomfortable. Sam would find out in due time anyway, let him keep a few brief minutes of peace.

Sam raises a brow. "Alright, then," he drawls. He puts the mug down. "Ready to get our feathers ruffled?" Clint snorts with laughter at the unexpected pun.

"Man, you know I always am." He reaches into the snack cabinet, grabs a few packs of chips and a couple of bowls, and heads back to the conference room with Sam at his side. Bucky and Steve have since made themselves comfortable in their respective seats. Or as comfortable as two obviously stressed to hell supersoldiers can be. He meets Sam's questioning eyes and shrugs helplessly. No use explaining it twice. He puts his stuff down and sits down next to Bucky. This is bad. This is really bad. He can feel his heart speeding up, his hands feel a little clammy. He knows, that from today on, everythings gonna be different. Everything. He might walk out of this room as a criminal. He might lose all his friends. Or at least one, going from the set of Steve and Bucky's jaws. Sam gives them weird looks and goes to open the chips, pouring himself a liberal amount. He offers to the rest of them, but they all shake their heads. Too tense to eat, actually. Getting snacks was a stupid idea, Clint berates himself. Steve invites Sam to sit in the seat on his left, normally occupied by Tony.

A couple minutes later, the door opens and Wanda steps through, wearing baggy pants and her hair in a wild, unkempt bun. She yawns and greets them with a wave. Clint tries to smile at her, but fails and she blinks at him. She goes to sit next to Sam and both soon begin a conversation full of speculating looks and many shrugs. Let them wonder, Clint thinks, they'll know soon enough. It doesn't take long for the rest to arrive. Nat's first, must have come straight from her New York apartment. To be here this early, she must have known about the meeting before any of the others. Wordlessly, she greets them and sits down next to him. They share a look. He can see in her eyes that she knows what's coming and he knows that she can see it in his as well. Then, Vision floats through the wall, coming straight from who knows where. As far as Clint knows, Vision doesn't really sleep or shower, so why he'd taken so long is beyond him. Rhodey's the last to arrive, shortly before nine. He seldom stays at the compound since he still runs missions for the military and has to jet around regularly. All chairs are occupied, except for one.

"Is Tony not coming?" Wanda asks Steve confusedly. He sees Steve grit his teeth.

"FRIDAY, have you notified Tony of my message?" The other asks.

"I have."

"And does he know that we're all here waiting for him?" Clint can see the rest look at each other worriedly. They don't know how bad things have gotten between Steve and Tony, lucky them. He wants to sink into his chair just to escape the drama and the uncomfortable atmosphere later. 

“He does," FRIDAY answers again and lo and behold, Tony sweeps through the door right that second. He doesn't even look around the room and makes a beeline to the one remaining seat in the room, next to Rhodey. Again, there are questioning looks thrown around, but Tony only crosses his legs, leans back and folds his hands. He looks at Steve cooly. For a few seconds, nothing happens as both of them stare at each other. Clint can hear the quiet clicking of Nat's fingernails against the arm of her chair and keeps himself from looking. Finally, Sam breaks the awkward silence, god bless him.

"Steve, you called a meeting?" Steve's head snaps around and he blinks suspiciously.

"Yes," he clears his throat, "yes." Still, no reaction from Tony. "Tony, did you not know about the meeting?" Tony flashes a wide grin at him.

"I thought it had been rescheduled." Clint sees one of Bucky's eyebrows go up and Nat's fingers still. Fucking hell, so it's gonna be one of _those_ meetings. As if things aren't complicated enough.

Rhodey looks between the two and asks, "You wanna tell us what's going on here?" Straight to the point, as always. Tony leans back even further.

Nodding, Steve stands up and heads to the flatscreen on one of the walls. He turns to face the room. "Have any of you seen the video that hit the internet around midnight? I'm willing to bet the majority of the people in here have." He throws Natasha a look and she nods. Sam, Rhodey and Wanda shake their heads, Vision stays silent.

"What video?" Wanda asks carefully.

"The video went viral about nine hours ago," Steve starts, "it contains sensitive information about the Sokovia Accords, the Raft and Thaddeus Ross. None of you have heard of it?" Considering the many tweets and posts Clint has stumbled across after five minutes on the internet, that's hard o believe. "Have you been on your devices, checked your mails or read any news online?" Steve's scowling now.

"Well, yeah." Wanda answers, throwing Clint a confused look. "Why?" He grimaces. So it _can_ be worse. He can hear Bucky's chair creak from the grip he has on it and puts his hand on it. Bucky relaxes, slowly.

Meanwhile, Steve snaps at Tony: "Did you censor the team's media?" He's met with one of Tony's signature bored looks, nothing else. Rhodey speaks up again.

"Steve, what the hell is going on?" Steve straightens his shoulders and takes a deep breath.

"Since I expected technical difficulties, I brought a copy." And he pulls out a USB stick, connects it to the screen and calls the video up. No more delay, he hits 'play' immediately.

The room's quiet while it plays. He watches the faces of his teammates closely, watches as incomprehension morphs into shock and grief. He watches Bucky's face close off and Nat's not move at all, just like Tony and Vision's. After Steve left earlier today, he and Bucky both took a closer look at the footage, watched it front to back. He knows the content by heart now, unable to shake the look on the man's face or the girl's unfocused eyes. When it's over, he finally manages to take a deep breath. It's quiet and Steve wordlessly returns to his seat. Clint can see Wanda blink tears out of her eyes and reminds himself to talk to her afterward. Then, Rhodey clears his throat.

"It was uploaded around midnight, you said?" Steve nods. "Then how come we haven't seen it. This must be everything the media is talking about."

"Not the news," Steve begins, " I couldn't find much coverage coming from their outlets, but the internet is buzzing. Social media especially."

Sam frowns. "But how have we not come across this. I got alerts set up for shit like that." Rhodey and Wanda nod unisono. Sam must be gearing up for quite a rant, Clint thinks, a bit gleeful. It's always fun to watch Sam verbally kick someone's ass, especially when he's really passionate about the topic.

The room turns to Tony, who shrugs. "We thought it was better for everyone to keep their calm until we know more." The guy could at least take off his fucking sunglasses, for christ's sake.

"Who's we?" Steve tries to interject, but he's steamrolled by Rhodey.

"You actively tried to keep intel from us? What the fuck, Tones?" Tony grins at him.

"Aww, don't be like that, honey bear," he snarks, "I was just trying for damage control." 

That's when Bucky finally speaks up. "How the hell did you think you could control anything here?! This is a major crisis, the whole UN committed human rights violations!" Man, he‘s angry.

Tony only sneers. "Well, don't get your panties in a bunch, Robocop."

"I," Bucky growls, "have just seen people like me, like _us,"_ he gestures at Wanda, "be locked in, restrained, and electrocuted for nothing more than obedience! I am allowed to be angry as fuck about this, Stark!" Out of the corner of his eyes, Clint can see Sam and Wanda nod, but his focus is on Bucky. He hasn't seen him that angry in a while and frankly, he's worried. He looks away and meets Falcon‘s concerned eyes. Sam indicates at Bucky and Clint nods. He'll deal with it. 

Tony raises his hands in defensive gesture. "Hey, I didn't say you couldn't be angry." He kind of had, but whatever. "I only mean to say that we have to think about what we're gonna do from here on. The government is doing all it can to patch the leak and keep the video from spreading, but it won't be long until we are waist-deep in shit's creek. We have to think of a way to fix things with the public before it turns against us." Clint's eyebrows shoot up.

He says, "I hate to break it to you, Tony, but the rest of us isn't really interested in 'fixing' our public image." Tony looks at Steve.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Steve leans forward, puts his elbows on the table and folds his hands. "It means," he starts, "that I, Bucky and Clint are in agreement about what we want to do from here on. And it does not contain defending the UN from public backlash, or even doing anything at all that would make it seem as if we support what is happening at the Raft right now." He looks around the room. "I realize that this is very sudden and that we had more time to process this than you had." His eyes rest on Nat for a second. "But I have made up my mind, and so have they. You are free to make your own choices." He leans back again. The room is dead silent.

"I'm with you on this," Wanda finally says, in a small voice, "I've supported fascists before. I don't want this on my conscience." Sam puts his hands on her shoulder and gives it a squeeze. She gives him a small, grateful smile and he turns to the rest of them.

"Same here. There are things I'm willing to do for my country, but endorsing human rights violations isn't one of them. You can count on me," He says to Steve, who lets out a relieved breath and nods. All eyes turn to Rhodey.

"I need more intel," he admits with a grimace, "I have to talk to my superiors, ask around a bit. I can't believe I haven't heard about this before. I will need some time to make a final decision." He gives them an apologetic look, but his reaction was expected. Rhodey seldom makes rash decisions and likes to keep his cards close to his chest. Clint turns his gaze to Tony, whose face has gone pinched.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Tony explodes. "What the hell? All of you? Do you even fucking know what's gonna happen when you stand against the Accords?!"

"We're aware," Steve responds coldly.

"Are you really? Do you really know? Because all your talk didn't clue me in on that!" he spits in Steve's direction. Before the supersoldier can respond, however, Sam puts up his hands.

"Wait, wait, wait," he says, "what is going on here? What's with you two and the murder glares?" He looks between them suspiciously. "You two havin' a crisis again?"

Tony curls his lips. "You could call it that." Bucky snorts.

"You could also call it the ‘final break-up‘."

"Bucky," Steve admonishes quietly while Sam and Wanda make surprised noises. 

"Again?" Rhodey mumbles. Tony whips around to glare at him. Rhodey only lifts an eyebrow. "What, like it's not true." Tony scoffs and looks at Bucky next.

"I don't remember anyone asking you, Terminator."

"And I don't remember signing away my right to express my feelings and autonomy. Oh wait, I do!" Any more sarcasm and even Vision's gonna look at them dubiously. This is getting a little off track.

"The Accords, gentlemen," Nat finally pitches in. "As much as we all love to discuss your boyfriend troubles, we have more important things to talk about."

"Ex-boyfriend troubles," Bucky grumbles belligerently but he lets it go. Steve sighs, but speaks up again.

"Bucky, Clint and I are aware that directly opposing the Accords will most likely lead to us becoming criminals. The government enforces the Accords and if we want to keep doing what we're doing, we have to play along or break the law. A stupid law, but surely I don't have to tell you that." He receives answering nods. "Anyway, now that we have signed the Accords, we don't have the freedom to make our own decisions anyway. As soon as we stop following orders, as soon as we obstruct those who enforce the Accords, they can detain us indefinitely without trial. If they declare us a threat to the general public, the same. We are screwed either way." Momentarily thrown by Steve's use of such coarse language, Clint looks at him. The guy looks tired, a little hopeless, maybe. No wonder, considering the night he's had. Rhodey looks uncomfortable, Wanda worried and Sam resigned, not that he can blame them. Nat, however, still doesn't say anything regarding her own stance on the Accords, and neither has Vision.

So he asks, "Nat. What about you?" She looks at him neutrally.

"I am aware of what the Accords mean to many," she answers coolly, "but I cannot compromise my current position." Clint can see Bucky and Steve giving him long looks in his periphery, but he only nods. He hadn't expected Natasha to be any clearer than that anyway, to be honest.

Tony points at her. "See! She gets it. We can't just compromise ourselves and what we're doing because there are some people who chose to break the law!"

Bucky growls, "I dunno if we've even seen the same video, Stark, but I saw a lot of broken laws, and none of them by the girl in that cell."

"They broke the Accords."

"Yes, by not signing them, from what it sounds like," Sam interjects. "We were given the choice to sign or to retire, I don't believe they had the same options."

Tony looks at him hard. "You don't know that."

"And neither do you." Wanda has finally chosen to speak up, her voice loud and clear, and Clint feels pride well up. She's looking straight at Tony, refusing to be the first one to glance away. "You don't know their stories, you don't get to judge them. There are ways the Accords can be used to deliberately hurt a innocent people and we don't know whether they have been or not."

Tony returns Wanda's look and presses his lips together, clearly stopping himself from saying something insensitive. No matter how long they have been friends and colleagues, if Tony opens his mouth and insults Wanda, Clint's gonna go ballistic. Fortunately, Tony chooses to stare at the table mutinously and only lifts his eyes to look at his watch.

Then, he looks up again. "Vision?"

"I have been calculating for hours, but I have not been able to come to a definite conclusion."

"Hours?" Clint inquires, "What do you mean 'hours'?"

"Viz?" Wanda asks uncertainly.

"I saw the video as soon as it was uploaded since I am constantly scouring the web for relevant information. It was very hard to miss."He cocks his head. "Besides, Mr. Stark's blocks do not affect me."

"Why did you not tell me? Or any of us?" Wanda asks quietly.

"I did not want to upset you."

"Yeah, about that." Sam interrupts them. "What the hell? Tony, you kept that from us why again?“ Clint misses Tony‘s answer when Nat grips his wrist under the table and squeezes. He looks at the neutral mask that is her face and lifts an eyebrow questioningly, but she doesn‘t look at him. He follows her eyes and sees Tony‘s caught on the rooms wall clock. And Clint understands.

“He‘s waiting for something,“ he blurts. All eyes turn to him. 

“Bullshit,“ Tony hisses. “If you have nothing to contribute, shut you mouth!“ Stung, Clint flinches back. Bucky growls, but he plows through.

“It‘s true, though, isn‘t it?“ He continues. “You‘ve been keeping an eye on your watch, even while talking to us. What you waiting for, huh?“

“What are you on, birdbrain?“ Tony scoffs.

“Come on, you only get this defensive when you‘re hiding something. Out with it.“

Tony opens his mouth, but before he can retort, Steve‘s pressed voice comes from behind Clint. 

“Tony? Who is that?“ When he turns around, he sees Steve at the glass wall facing the court yard. He‘s not the only one shooting out of his seat to see what‘s going on. 

“Fuck,“ he mutters. Because the man getting out of the backseat of a silver Mercedes, shadowed by two burly guys in suits, is no other than Thaddeus Ross. 

**Author's Note:**

> The title stems from Robert Frost‘s poem about a man who chooses a road less traveled instead of the easy on everyone uses. I felt like that really fit the “Trying to do the right thing against the odds“ theme I want here.
> 
> This will be my first multi-chapter story, but I‘m also working on a longer Witcher AU and a The Long Dark crossover, so it‘s possible that I won‘t be able to update This one regularly.
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr.


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